Swift - Starting the New Year training with Swift 1/7/13 - A long read...

I have read with interest a good part of this thread. I applied with Swift about a month ago and talked to a recruiter a couple of times about going into their training school in Corsicana, TX. I had thought that Swift may not be a good fit for me after further research. I had not heard anything from Swift until a couple of days ago. The recruiter asked via email to contact him if I was still interested in the job. Does this mean they have checked me out and want to prehire?

 

I did get some weird looks when I got home and was taking turns REAL WIDE in my Honda Civic...

 

Find yourself checking side mirrors to make sure the rear tire clears the curb on turns?

 

lol

I also find myself going slow, last time I took home time my wife came and picked me up in Mira Loma but wanted me to drive home since she was tired. I caught myself doing 58 on the interstate a couple times and then thought wtf am I going slow for lol

 

I told my husband a couple of times when he was driving that he needed to give it some more gas and speed up

 

LOL, my wife shudders when I drive her Miata. I am so used to floating that I sometimes forget to clutch in her car. She is not fond of gear grinding!

Oh, and talk about a different perspective looking at the road from being way up high in the truck, to being down on the road in that car.

 

My thumb goes to the jake button on the steering wheel, but its not there!

 

Back to the issue of whether or not to follow fuel stops and routing, I'm on a JIT load right now I picked up yesterday on fumes with fuel stop 30 miles from the shipper to fill up. The load turned out to be light, so no issues there. I ran a full day today, and will deliver after about 4 hours driving tomorrow. The only other fuel stop in the fuel plan is 20 miles before I make delivery.

In this situation I don't make that last fuel stop. I have plenty of fuel to make it to the delivery, which will leave me with 1/4 tank or so. This is how I like to finish out a load, at about 1/4 to 1/2 tank. Then if I get a heavy haul I can scale out BEFORE I fuel up and calculate how much fuel I can take on. There have been loads that required me to keep the tank well below 3/4 to keep the drives below 34K.

The downside to not making that last fuel stop is that you are missing out on one shower credit. Make up for it by underfilling on your fuel stops and asking to "reup" your fuel on long hauls. Put in 50-70 gallons at a time. That way you will get shower credits aplenty.